SeaDawg

I hope so, too. 🤞

Many power stations have an internal integrated controller, so your panel may not/probably doesn't have a controller. You'd need to add one, to safely use it with the Ollie, as the solar port does not run through the on-board controller for the fixed panels. The port connects through just a fused line, going straight to the batteries. X2 @bhncb

I'm kind of confused. I don't think I've ever seen a portable panel with an mc4 male or female end to plug onto a port. Mc4 connectors aren't easy to separate, in my experience, and are not made for quick connect like some other types. We have a special little plastic tool to disconnect our fixed panel mc4 connectors, which are semi "permanent " connections. Many suitcase solar come with alligator clips. Zamp uses sae, wired reverse of standard. Some brands come with a few varieties of connectors. I've not seen quick connect mc4 in portable solar, but maybe there's something new out there. Edit to add: I looked around, and found these quick connect mc4 connector pairs from a Canadian company. Is this what yours look like? http://azimuthsolarproducts.com/product/mc4-connectors/

Time of day? Angle of the sun? Do you think your zamp reading of 13.1 could be some errant solar actually charging the panels? The 4th dot flashing would also indicate "charging" to me, but I'm not a Zamp owner. Someone else who is could be more help here. It is curious. Resting voltage of a fully charged agm 12 v battery isn't 13.1, in my experience. Maybe 12.7 or 12.8, maybe a bit higher, depending on the battery. 13.1 would seem to be a charging voltage, from some source. Resting voltage is a battery sitting without charge, or load, for several hours.

I kind of think Pete's Taco @bugeyedriver was rated for more than 5000 pounds, though. He still has it, along with his f150. Maybe he'll chime in. Our Elite, loaded for camping, weighed just shy of 4000 pounds at a Cat scale on the way home from a weekend trip, partial grey and black, I don't remember how much propane. No tongue basket, no Anderson. 420 pounds on the tongue. At that time we had the heavier Dometic ac unit, and the heavier 3way fridge, and 200 watts solar and a kingdome on the roof. I'd guess we're probably 100 to 150 pounds lighter, now. Maybe more. At any rate, Steve is correct. The Colorado is a fun truck, but may not be a fun tow, and you'll have to watch payload. But hey, you own it. If you love the truck, give it a try.

We have several 5 gallon tanks, like these below, for drinking water. We've worn out a couple spouts over the years, but the tanks are fine. Empty, they stack 3 high on our garage, and full, they pack nicely in the truck bed because of the shape. Five gallons is about all I can lift. When we're set up for several days, we just put a container on the trailer tongue or a step stool, on its side, and use the spigot. A number of people use the scepter tanks. Really nice, and super durable. More expensive. We also have a 40+ gallon bladder, like this one below. Folded up empty, it fits in one of our underbed bins. We don't use it much, but it's light, and good to have around for emergency refills. We carry it full in the pickup bed.

A couple more youtubes on the subject. I could see this being used in an off grid cabin, powered by a dedicated solar setup. There are lots of relatively inexpensive used panels on the market today, with a lot of life left, but too big to carry around. Like John, I don't see us carrying something like this around. At least not anytime soon.

If you search "chevy Colorado" and similar "Tacoma ", you'll find some posts. It should be ok, but not a ton of fun in the mountains. Our first TV was a Volvo xc90, 4900 lb towing capacity, underpowered t5. It was fine in flats, struggled in mountains. Where are you, and where do you want to camp? Do you already own the Colorado?

Interesting. One of our NC friends collects the condensate from his ac and dehumidifier, in jugs, to wash his cars. His well water leaves water spots

@Steph and Dud B, is your sales representative aware of your school schedule? I sure hope you get to enjoy your trailer before school starts.

@Liana, as @mossemi said, if you were getting 112 mi-day, and a bunch of other people are charging or using power otherwise, at dusk, your ems, and/or your pd charge wizard will shut down if voltage received is too low, as i mentioned earlier. Do talk to the management. You may not have been charging much, if at all. Have you visited the storage site again, to see what your readings are, after sunset? Frankly, I'd cut off the solar, remove the batteries, take them in to an auto parts shop, and get them load tested. See if it's worth trying to bring them back. If autozone or Napa says it's worth a try, take them home, put them on slow chargers, and see what you get after a few days. Even really dead batteries will display over 13, when charging. But, they'll very quickly drop down to 12.0 or 12.2 when the charger is disconnected, and any small load is applied. I'm sorry this has happened. It may be possible to revive flattened batteries, or it may not. Depends on how long they've been flat, and how many times they've cycled. At least you got 3 or 4 years. Whether you jump down the lithium rabbit hole, or replace with agms, is really up to you. But, I'd really want to find out why the batteries weren't charging, in the first place before I replaced them, and fix that situation first. No point in throwing good money after bad, as my mom would say .

I've seen people use that solution, not here, but on other forums, @jim sroka. If it's only for off season storage, it's a lot cheaper than rebuilding a garage. More work, each season, but, well... I haven't seen the height spec change since 2015, on the Oliver specs, so I'm actually wondering how accurate they may be. We lost at least 4" when we removed the useless kingdome and the superhigh old Dometic. Changing out the fan is pretty easy. I'd recommend the FanTastic vent, that closes in rain, with a humidity sensor. Also wondering if the original (2009) Elite II units ran on 15" rims, with st tires. We still run st 15s on our elite. That could offer a few inches, all the time. @ScubaRx might know. I don't.

@Liana, a few more questions. Who sets up the two hour charging time? You, or the storage facility. Does everyone in the facility charge at the same time? Were you at the facility during that time, or outside of the charging period, when the monitor showed full power? Have you checked to make sure battery connections are tight and clean? As in, no corrosion? As @Steph and Dud B said, you will always have a ghost draw,, if batteries aren't disconnected. Ours is small, at roughly 3.5, but many people report .7 or higher. Any chance you have something running on dc or 110? Lights in storage areas, water heater, fridge, etc. Every control board sucks a little power. And, if you have something, even small, running on 110, it will suck some of the charging power away. I'm guessing you have a progressive dynamics converter charger, from your trailer age. That can cut out at 105 volts, due to low power protection (though a tech I spoke to said probably not til it drops to 100, but I wouldn't count on it). If everyone in the facility is charging on a timer, at the same time, you may not be getting much of a charge, if any. The charge wizard will kick in when it gets good/full power, (as you showed, with e0, 60h, 112) but will kick out when it's too low. I wouldn't count on getting much (if any) solar if you're in a covered spot, in winter. Your batteries are 3 to 4 years old. Agm, or flooded? Have you checked the water levels recently, if flooded? How long has your trailer been in storage? How long has it been since you were at the storage unit? 12.0 is pretty much a flat battery bank. So a complete cycle. Agm and fla like to be fully charged, daily. You don't get a lot of cycles on marine batteries. You may, or may not, be approaching end of life on your batteries, and may or may not be able to bring them back. A cheap portable solar, sitting on the carport, or even on the trailer tongue,, in the right orientation, facing the winter sun at 90 degrees would help more than your fixed panels, imo. Which monitor do you have? Blue sky, or Zamp? I know it's a lot of questions, but you'll get better answers with more info.

With all the gear out there today, there are literally thousands of ways to skin this cat. We use one or two really cheap, but somewhat bulky coleman 100 watt panels for "portable " solar. Each only weighs about 18 pounds, but they're pretty big. Not easy to haul, and store. I have a friend who made a collapsible pvc frame for an inexpensive thin and lightweight 100 watt flexible panel, and she's happy with that. She stores it under the cushions when she travels. Controller in the cupboards. We rarely deploy "portable " unless we'll be in a spot for a long time, and camped in the shade . Weight is a consideration, as is theft, for me. If someone steals my 5 year old, 100 dollar panel, well, they need it far more than I do. We have a furrion port, because I like the cover better. In the past, we had to use a cnlinko soldered tricky connector, because furrion didn't sell a connector without one of their overpriced panels. Today, you can buy a zamp or mc4 to furrion adaptor. Zamp sells one on their website . You can also buy an adaptor to reverse the zamp reversed polarity. Zamp claims its safer than standard sae (probably true, less likelihood of shocking yourself if you are careless enough to put your hand on the male connector), but it's really probably just one of their proprietary kind of tools. Is what it is . I'm always in the "don't get carried away" chorus. Use what you already have, and, if you actually find that you need more, then, buy more . As in, a cheap and simple panel, with good alligator clips, and a $20 pwm controller, might or might not be all you need. Or, you may need the whole enchilada. I don't know. We boondocked for over ten years with 2 agm 105 ah batteries, and 200 watts of fixed solar and a Honda 1000 watt generator, rarely used, til we installed a compressor fridge. The extra draw (60 to 70 ah a day) of the fridge definitely changed things up .

@Geronimo John, we avoid those temps, so I'll take your word for it. Good practice to keep the fridge side on the shade. I have read many reports of absorption fridges not keeping up in extreme heat. But then, I know I don't do well in that heat, either.

One more thing. Your newer trailers have a device (ems) (probably progressive dynamics) protecting you from open grounds. That's why you need the neutral grounding plug. Most quality inverter generators (Honda, yamahs, and many others), use a floating ground, and it will trip out your protective device, without the neutral grounding plug . I know this sounds complicated, but it really isn't. It just is what it is. Buy the neutral grounding plug (maybe $15), or make one, use it when you plug in the trailer, and life is good. You don't have to understand all the electron magic. Just have the right bits.

How tall is your door, taking into consideration the opener, and tracks? What is the accurate measured height of your current tab? Do you have ac?⁰ I think the ac Oliver uses today is very low profile. Our 2008 dometic was ridiculously tall. Our houghton is under 10 inches, but the current Dometic low profile probably is too. I'm also wondering if Oliver has updated heights for the lower profile ac used today? +

We have two generators. The little Honda 1000 that's been our BFF for 14 seasons, and a Westinghouse 2500, 2200 running watts. We disconnect the trailer after charging, but I wouldn't run a big saw or our air compressor while the trailer was plugged into the Westinghouse. We have charged makita batteries at the same time as charging the trailer. The Honda won't run much, at 1000 watts, but it's great for charging our 2 agm batteries, only.

Just get the Honda 2200i, save the $100 or $200, and use the 30 to 15 adapter for the trailer. If my memory serves, you still only get roughly 15 to 20 amps from the 30 amp plug, from the companion, unless you've linked it to a running 2200 with the parallel cable. It's something like 1800 or 1900 running watts, 2200 peak, so math says something like max 16 to 17 amps, running. Unless I'm missing something.

I hope so, too. Did you shut down power from the panels, for safety? After you reinstall the batteries, and reboot the system, I hope you will share your results. Good luck. Chasing electronic issues is the worst, imo.

Love your Chevy. 💜

As far as durability, you can always remove and switch up that front logo. Is what it is, imo. We have a very few stone dimples, over the 14 years. Veteran travel scars, imo. No window up there to crack and break. I'm ok with that.

We've never had a front logo. We thought about it, but could never pick. So, we're still running bare, except for the sides. There are a bunch of folks here who applied their own, several years ago. Offhand, I can think of @Mike and Carol, @bugeyedriver, @dewdev, @Mainiac and I know there are many, many others. I hope many others will chime in. Most shops use similar materials.

@thompsonkd, how did you resolve your issues? Just curious, as someone with a similar date trailer is also having problems. Thanks. Sherry

So, I took a break from hunting down a couple of tiny motors for our solar vents on the boat, and researched your eyebrow board. None of my usual sources have it. One company, that I've never ordered from, and has mixed reviews, suggests that it is discontinued, and the lower control board must also be replaced to function with a replacement board. Plus, disconnecting the igniter, and thermocouple , as they are now integrated into the lower control module?. This company, in Oregon, sells both as a kit. They also charge a big restocking fee, if you guess wrong, at what you need. Because none of my usual sources have the board you're looking for, it may just be true. Maybe Dometic consolidated all the changes across the varying parts/years into a standardized system, changing both boards. I don't know, as I haven't had a dometic fridge in 4 years. If it were me, I'd get back on the phone with Dometic tech services (it can be a very long wait/hold time...) and investigate further. If it's so, perhaps Dometic has both of the newer boards in stock. Or, if they can give you the part numbers, you may find them on Amazon, or Dyers, Panther, or Adventure rv, or even someone local. Make sure you have the model and serial number on hand when you call Dometic. I usually take a photo of the label on the fridge, so I don't transpose numbers writing them down. Maybe you'll get a more helpful tech, this time around. I feel your pain. I've spent probably 10 hours looking for two tiny motors for the solar vents on our boat. I found them, in Germany, but the company won't ship to USA or Canada. I may have to resort to "phone a friend ," get them shipped to a friend in the eu, and pay for forwarding. At least the replacements would be German made. A lot of hassle for 2 parts costing 12 euros each. However, replacement vents would be over $200 each. Marinco doesn't stock or sell replacement parts. They used to, but no longer, and the units are solid, other than the dinky motors.